You want to have fun in your car, and have some enjoyment in the twisties and corners.

People are very often concerned about making more horsepower, having a better sound system, etc and one area thats frequently overlooked is the weight of the car, and more specifically rotating mass weight.

Now, any car can benefit from a weight reduction, but how extreme you want to take it depends on you.

Take for example our 2014 Dodge Dart GT.

One of the things we did to change our cars look, was to get a set of 18 inch Enkei PF01 wheels. These replaced the factory Dart GT wheels that looked like this.

Now, we dont have exact weights available at time of making this article, but the factory GT wheels were very heavy, and weighed something like 24/25 lbs each. The Enkei wheels we put on that you can see below weighed in at 18/19 lbs. Thats a savings of about 6 lbs on each corner. That may not sound like much, but a 24lb weight savings on wheels is massive.

Now, with these new wheels, we noticed a difference in acceleration off the bat, the car handled better, it revved up much faster, and felt faster overall. This is because, in general anything that is rotating mass – ie, wheels, tires, brakes, axles, rotors, engine internals directly affects the engines performance.

Now, we also did some other work to our Dart to reduce weight.

Brakes – we used a custom made brake kit to reduce 16 lbs of rotating mass.

Seats – we pulled out the leather seats and installed cloth seats to save nearly 30lbs of weight. Most of the weight savings were from going from full power seats to manual seats, no heavy motors attached to the cloth seats!

So, we have reduced nearly 50lbs of rotating mass, and about 30 lbs of fixed mass. This is pretty incredible and its a difference you can feel when driving our Dart.

Morale of this story is – when you are modifying your car, keep the weight in mind!

Or, to quote the founder of Lotus automobiles, the lightweight, fun roadsters –

Our employee Matt ordered some window moldings for his 1998 Dodge Neon and the moldings were transferred from the “Vintage Parts” division.

We think its pretty interesting that our 1995-1999 Dodge Neons are now considered “Vintage”. Should we start applying for ANTIQUE VEHICLE plates yet ? Hehehe. We got a laugh out of this and thought it would be cool to share with you guys.

In part 11 of our SRT4 swap into a 1995 Neon we discussed ABS pump and mounting it into the Neon.

Here we have the SRT4 torque mount/Power steering bracket. Most Neon owners that do a SRT4 swap just use the 2.4 Stratus engine mount swap adapter and eliminate this bracket altogether. The problem with doing that, is that you cant use a upper torque mount to secure the engine in place, nor will you have power steering if you eliminate this bracket.

So, we have taken the nut that goes on the inside of the bracket, and we have measured and found that the point in which we could use our Neon passenger side mount and bolt along with this bracket.

The nut that our passenger side motor mount bolt will attach onto fits perfectly into the webbing on the backside of the SRT4 power steering/torque mount brace.

In part 10 we discussed electrical wiring of our SRT4 swapped 1995 Neon.

Next up is installing the ABS pump. The engine bay in the SRT4 had a lot of room, but because we have a LOT less room in the Neon we have to modify the bracket to be able to mount the ABS pump onto the frame. The rusty piece of steel welded onto the right side of the bracket is the piece we added on.

Here, we are cutting away a lot of the ABS pump mounting bracket because all we need are the two mounting points for the ABS pump.

This is what our custom bracket looks like after a lot of cutting, and welding.

Here we have the ABS pump with our special bracket mounted to the frame.

Here we have the ABS Pump mounted, and the SRT4 brake lines are attached to the ABS pump.

In our previous installment of our SRT4 swap series we showed you the differences between a lot of Neon and SRT4 components.

Now onto the fuel tank. I wanted to use the SRT4 fuel tank, SRT4 fuel pump, and SRT4 fuel lines. The tanks are very similar, except the angle of the fuel inlet, and the SRT4 straps tie down in a slightly different spot. Here we have the SRT4 fuel tank on top, and the Neon fuel tank on bottom.

Neon fuel tank on top, SRT4 fuel tank on bottom.

Because the SRT4 fuel tank is larger, the straps wouldnt tie down to the Neon.

So, we have taken some 1/4 inch steel plate, drilled it, and used these to extend out the mounting points for the fuel tank straps.

Heres the tank installed with the 1/4 inch plate along with a large spacer.

Now, the angle of the fuel filler necks are different between both cars so we eventually install a SRT4 fuel filler neck to use with the SRT4 fuel tank. This photo shows the Neon fuel filler neck and the SRT4 fuel tank. Notice the difference in angles on the inlet.

Today I did something that very few 1995-1999 Dodge Neon owners have ever done. I took a Diablosport Predator, connected it to my OBD2 port on my 1995 Neon and flashed a new performance program to the pcm within 3 minutes.

Now, before all of you 1995-1999 Neon owners call us and ask where you can buy this item, realize that this car is a full SRT4 swap car, and it has a SRT4 pcm, wiring harness, and obd2 port on a car that typically came with obd1 and could not be flashed.

Here are some pictures of the flashing process.

Results :
Went from 13-14 psi to 15-16 psi of boost
Boost builds up MUCH faster now
Went from 10.5:1 air fuel ratio in 4th gear to 12.0:1 air fuel ratio in 4th gear. (Car was reprogrammed to run leaner for more power with predator flash!)

Further benefit of the Predator flasher:
Can adjust idle
Can adjust when fans turn on and off
Can adjust timing
Can adjust fuel
Can adjust boost
Can adjust TONS more parameters. Its absolutely amazing.

Previously in our SRT4 swap series into a 1995 Neon we talked about steering column and clutch pedal placements.

Neon steering column mount on the left, SRT4 on the right.

Under the dash, some of the sheet metal needs to be cut for the pedal assemblies to fit.

In these photos you’ll see that we will be using the Neon upper mounting plate for the pedals, but we are using the SRT4 pedal assemblies. So, some work has to be done to cut, and modify the SRT4 pedal assembly and then weld the Neon upper mounting plate onto it.

Anytime you are installing a new component like a new larger turbo on your 03-05 Dodge SRT4, or a new header on your 95-05 Neon, you should consider installing ARP Exhaust studs.

Why ? Well, each time you remove and reinstall a screw into the head of your engine, you increase the chances of stripping out the threads, and furthermore the ARP studs are stronger! The ARP studs, because they are forged, can handle a lot more weight than your typical bolt!

The way these work, is you thread the studs into the head just like a normal exhaust bolt. You use a allen key to thread the stud into place as the stud has a allen key receptacle on the end of it. After tightening down the stud, you then put the new component onto the stud, and then torque down the nut onto the stud.

The photo above is of a 2004 Dodge SRT4, and you may wonder why the engine is sitting at an angle.

The reason is, the customer that owns this car has a very modified engine, larger turbo, cams, and cam gears. Most owners of cars who install cam gears typically leave the cam gear covers off so that they can adjust the cam gears easily.

The problem with leaving the plastic cam gear covers off, is your timing belt and other timing accesories can be damaged. In this particular case, the customers power steering belt flew off, somehow got lodged into the timing belt assembly and destroyed the timing belt. Thankfully the 03-05 SRT4 is a non interference motor that in case the timing belt breaks the valves wont slam into the pistons, and this customer had no engine damage because of his timing belt failing.

The 2.0 Neon motor from 1995-2005 are all interference motors so if your timing belt fails, then the valves will crash into the pistons and cause catastrophic damage.